Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon

Shortly after his untimely death in 1988, Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric art-world ascent was in retreat. Nearly four decades later, the artist's paintings are amongst the world's most recognizable and valuable. Based on over 100 interviews, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon finally fills in long-missing chapters from the life and work of an artist who helped reframe contemporary art.

For the first substantive biography in over twenty-five years, art world insider Doug Woodham conducted more than 100 interviews - with family members, friends, lovers, gallery owners, collectors, musicians, academics and other artists - to weave a thoughtful and revealing account of Basquiat's life, work and legacy. Woodham's account takes readers from the artist's rich and complex family background through to his commercial and critical resurrection - an ascent that has played a role in reshaping the art-world. In the process, he has also crafted a unique account of how the twenty-first century art world selects its icons and cements their place in history.